Housing

New publication from Richard Green: “Gender Difference and Intra-Household Economic Power in Mortgage Signing Order.”

Gender difference is deeply rooted in our identity and has been widely documented by economists in disparate real-world economic contexts. For example, though women have made substantial labor market gains in both participation and earnings, gender inequality persists …

To learn why the San Diego Housing Commission’s Achievement Academy – a suite of workforce development programs – is effective in supporting families receiving Section 8 vouchers, we continue conducting interviews in our longitudinal data collection with Achievement Academy families. Our conversations have put a spotlight on a key factor: a strong personal touch. The Section 8 recipients highly value the intensive, personal, positive interactions they have with Achievement Academy staff, and almost all of them point to positive outcomes that come from the personal investment of their “caseworkers”.

The corridor of gleaming high rises along Vancouver and Williams Avenues is a marked change from the early 2000s. When the Housing Authority of Portland (now known as Home Forward) applied for HOPE VI funds for the old Iris Court development, it was known as a rough area. Residents who lived there, or who knew of it by reputation …

KPCC-FM’s “Take Two” interviewed Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the USC Price School about a proposal to keep net neutrality regulations alive in California and Gov. Jerry Brown’s issues with the congressional tax reform bill. Today on State of Affairs: Acting mayor London Breed takes over in San Francisco after the sudden death of Mayor Ed…

As part of my interdisciplinary freshman Honors course at San Diego State University titled “Housing, Home, and Homeland,” I had my twenty-six students spend several weeks reading and discussing Matthew Desmond’s renowned book Evicted, and then gave them an assignment to code an interview from Access to Opportunity research in San Diego. As a culminating experience, we visited the Monarch School, an innovative K-12 school for homeless youth in downtown San Diego ….

USA Today quoted Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center, on how the federal mortgage interest reduction affects homeownership rates. Green notes that the deduction is most important to those living in states like California, which has both high tax rates and high home prices. Home prices there, he said, could drop without the…

Emily Lieb brings us another research update from Seattle from the Access to Opportunity Project:

What’s in a neighborhood? Scholars (and realtors) agree: Where a person lives determines how much access to opportunity she has. Good schools, safe streets, high-quality housing that appreciates in value, accessible jobs and services, clean air and water—all of these things make it possible for people to do the best they can for themselves and their families. Poor schools, high crime rates, bad housing, an unhealthy environment, and relative inaccessibility do the opposite. Each one of these things is an obstacle standing between a family and its potential.

Los Angeles Times quoted Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center, on his expectations for rising home prices. This is different than the housing bubble, which was fueled by real estate speculation, Green said. Now it’s a simple case of low supply and high demand in an area that is attracting more upper-income workers,…

Lisa K. Bates, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Urban Studies in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, updates us on research in the Access to Opportunity Project.

When thinking about assessing the impact of Humboldt Gardens’ GOALS program, which is the project‘s version of HUD‘s Family Self-Sufficiency Program (FSS), it is useful to know the program‘s context. The concept of FSS is straightforward — parents participate in programming designed to promote employment and financial stability, working with a case manager to set goals.